Jeff Bezos, noted journalist and voting machine expert, explains in his own newspaper why he stopped the editorial staff from endorsing a presidential nominee:

Let me give an analogy, voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the votes accurately and people must believe they count the vote accurately.

Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate.

Not only is the voting machine analogy, for a lack of a better phrase, not analogous, his premise is absurd. Does Jeff Bezos think voting machines should be their own propaganda machines informing the world of their own accuracy? Or is a propaganda machine what he wants the Washington Post to be? Presumably, he would prefer the latter. Why? Because, voting machines need to be accurate. That’s it. What a fool believes is no matter to a voting machine.

He begs the questions with his analogy, also known as circular logic. This statement is true, because it is. Accept that voting machines need to be 2 things therefore newspapers need to be those same 2 things. Anyone who has gone through the corporate system would find this logic familiar. The pompous, self important acknowledgement of the topic finished with the lack of understanding of the problem with the hand waving of responsibility for a solution.

We simply don’t know who’s to blame for the distrust in news outlets. So by the authority of money, I cannot allow you to say what you think is right for America.

What I find most interesting about Mr. Bezo’s Op-Ed is that he succinctly exemplifies how billionaires, corporations, and financiers influence markets and why everything seems to be deteriorating in modern life:

Its not enough for a product to be good, people have to believe it’s good.

Once people believe it’s good, we no longer need to make a good product.